The present invention, in some embodiments thereof, relates to event processing and, more specifically, but not exclusively, to proactive event processing.
During the last years, event processing has become a common infrastructure for real-time applications which require processing of data streams, such as electronic trading systems, and network monitoring. Event processing systems are capable of detecting complex situations (a context-sensitive composition of messages and events), rather than single events. The functionality is applicable when processing a composition of event sources from a business, application, or infrastructure perspective within different contexts. Sample scenarios relating to SLA alerts and compliance checking are applicable to retail and banking.
An event (e) is an occurrence within a particular system or domain; it is something that has happened, or is contemplated as having happened in that domain. An event type (E) is a specification for a set of events that share the same semantic intent and structure. An event type can represent an event arriving from a producer, or an event produced by an event processing agent (EPA) which is a processing element that applies logic on a set of input events, to generate one or more outputs (derived) events. Events may be raw events and derived events. Derived events are higher-level events in the semantic hierarchy. As an example, bank deposit is an observable event; money laundering is higher level event that is inferred based on specific patterns over these bank deposit events.
An event processing network (EPN) is a conceptual model, describing the event processing flow execution. It consists of a collection of EPAs, producers, and consumers linked by channels. An event channel is a processing element that receives events from one or more source elements (producer or EPA), makes routing decisions, and sends the input events unchanged to one or more target elements (EPA or consumer) in accordance with the routing decisions. The EPN follows an event driven architecture, namely EPAs are communicating in asynchronous fashion by receiving and sending events.